rice

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Brittius
If It Walks Like A Duck…
Stately McDaniel Manor
An enormous amount has already been written about the Obama Administration’s coopting of American intelligence agencies for the domestic surveillance of members of the Trump campaign and eventual transition team. Virtually none of that has been written by the mainstream media, who have actually categorized it a non or false story, preferring instead to beat the long dead horse of Trump collaboration with Russia. Fox News has been the media leader in accurately reporting that particular, ever-expanding story. Fox now adds to the mounting revelations and evidence:

The House and Senate intelligence committees are expanding their investigation into the so-called “unmasking” controversy, Fox News has learned, to examine whether other candidates or lawmakers beyond President Trump’s associates were affected.

Until now, the investigation focused on how the identities and communications of Trump transition members were collected by U.S. intelligence agencies and then revealed to, and disseminated among, high-ranking members of the Obama administration.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., now plans to audit files from the National Security Agency and White House to determine whether identities and conversations of presidential candidates — or members of Congress — also were swept up during NSA surveillance of foreign leaders. He also plans to review whether Obama’s National Security Council and White House counsel collected and distributed the intelligence for reasons unrelated to foreign intelligence.

“We will be performing an accounting of all unmasking for political purposes focused on the previous White House administration,” a member of the committee told Fox News. “This is now a full-blown investigation.”

Staffers on the Senate committee told Fox News they also have expanded their investigation into whether presidential candidates were unmasked and information was misused — and what role former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, among others, played following reports that she requested Trump-affiliated names be unmasked.

For a private U.S. citizen to be “unmasked,” or named, in an intelligence report is extremely rare and typically only done if it has some foreign intelligence value. Typically, the American is a suspect in a crime, is in danger or has to be named to explain the context of the report.

The intelligence reports that Rice and others in the administration reportedly assembled are similar to what a private investigator might piece together, congressional and U.S. intelligence sources said. In some cases, rather than documenting foreign intelligence, the files included salacious personal information that, if released, could be embarrassing or harmful to the person’s reputation, U.S. intelligence and House Intelligence Committee sources said.

These reports were then disseminated to about 20 to 30 people who had classified clearance in the Obama administration hierarchy, these sources said.

Trump, members of his family, and members of his campaign and transition teams, were likely subjects of “incidental electronic surveillance” by U.S. intelligence agencies, Fox News reported.

Sources told Fox News that names were then sent to all those at the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan — as well as Rice and her former deputy Ben Rhodes, even though the names were supposed to be reported only to the initial requester.

If the names were unmasked in intelligence reports and then leaked to the media for political reasons, it could constitute criminal behavior.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s initial national security adviser, is one known example of a Trump campaign official whose name was unmasked from an intelligence report and leaked to the press. While Rice hasn’t said whether she unmasked Flynn, the leak of his conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak where he discussed U.S. sanctions led Flynn to resign three weeks into his term.

Nunes first announced on March 22 that he’d viewed intelligence reports that contained incidental surveillance on members of the Trump team.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page also was monitored by the FBI after the agency obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant as part of an ongoing investigation into possible links between Russian officials and members of the Trump campaign.

In a statement to Fox News, Page said he has done nothing wrong and was a political target.

Malia Zimmerman is an award-winning investigative reporter focusing on crime, homeland security, illegal immigration crime, terrorism and political corruption. Follow her on twitter at @MaliaMZimmerman

Adam Housley joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in 2001 and currently serves as a Los Angeles-based senior correspondent.

Kyodo News, July 14, 2014: Debris cleanup at Fukushima reactor may have contaminated rice crops [in] areas located more than 20 km from the crippled nuclear plant. Farm ministry officials said they could not deny the possibility […] A Tepco spokesman said the company does not deny the possibility that its cleanup work is to blame but added it isn’t clear whether that was the direct cause of the contamination.

NHK, July 14, 2014: Rice paddies located about 20 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi plant were found contaminated with radioactive cesium blown by the wind. The Fukushima Prefectural government revealed that last year’s harvested ricefrom 14 locations in the city of Minami Soma contained more than 100 becquerels of cesium per kilogram. This is beyond the government’s safety limit. […] [TEPCO] said it will increase monitoring of the spreading dust. Neither the ministry nor the utility told Minami Soma City officials the work at the plant may have contaminated the crop. City officials say they were greatly startled. They said the ministry should have explained the matter to local authorities much earlier. […] TEPCO is scheduled to conduct a large-scale debris removal work at Number One reactor. For this, it plans to disassemble covers which had been put to prevent the radioactive materials from spreading.

The Asahi Shimbun, July 14, 2014: [There’s] strong indications that earlier removal work contaminated rice paddies far from the stricken facility […] Although the utility has since suspended its clearing operations at the plant, the company plans to soon dismantle a cover installed on the No. 1 reactor building, where highly contaminated debris remains to be removed. TEPCO has not told thepublic about the ministry’s findings. […] the ministry concluded that the radioactive substances had been newly released […] The ministry is pointing to Aug. 19, when […] dose rates increased at five measuring points 2.8 to 8.3 km north-northwest […] the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI) estimated that the released particles would reach the city within three hours. […] the utility said it has yet to learn how far the released particles spread. The company said its plans to dismantle the cover on the No. 1 reactor building will be the fastest way to remove wreckage from the site. TEPCO […] acknowledged that the procedure will still lead to the release of a large amount of radioactive substances, and the spread of the substances will depend on the weather and the wind direction.